Dancing Out of November 2016

While I was happy that October was over last recap, I am now even happier that the year is almost over. But it wasn’t all bad. We got to visit my parents with Merijn, I had my first bookstagram pictures go over a 100 likes and I completed my reading challenge for this year. A whole month early!

The Worst Witch to the Rescue (The Worst Witch 6) by Jill Murphy – 4 stars

A Million Worlds with You (Firebird 3) by Claudia Gray – undetermined rating

Favorite

Timekeeper! And goodreads tells me there will be more. Now I am happy.

Dissapointed

Heartless. I was just expecting more of it.

Not Going to Review

Dreamcatcher was a buddy read with someone from the Dutch goodreads group Books Ever After. But at about the halfway point we both weren’t enjoying the story very much. We both felt it was off to a good start but when the second part came around we lost interest in it. For me I also could not get used to the writing set up. There are chapters within the chapters (some a paragraph long others 5-10 pages), and for me it felt like a struggle to get through some of them. It is a style that I don’t quite enjoy reading. Does Stephen King write all his books like that?

I did not review Odd and the Frost Giants either because I did not have a lot to say about it. The story is enjoyable and the illustrations by Chris Riddell are gorgeous as always.

The Worst Witch book is the sixth in a series but the first one I read. They are easy to get into though and a cute children’s read.

Current Read

⌘ Rivers of London by Ben Aaronvitch – 21%
So far I am not very taken with this. I’m not sure if I will finish.

⌘ The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown – 21%
Since Dreamcatcher wasn’t working out for either of us, Fransinda choose this book to buddy read instead.

The TBR Challenge

# Unread BooksTotal unread books on shelf end of October– 169 Books read in November (that count, no ebooks, rereads etc) – 6 Books bought/received in November (no ebooks) – 6 Total unread books on shelf end of November– 169

Look at that. I remained at the same amount. Who am I even? For now I remain keeping track of this but hopefully next year I can really challenge myself to get this below a certain number. I also need to take a good look at some of the books on my shelves during December and January and possibly unhaul a few so I am good to go again in 2017.

How Was November for Me?

⌘ In November we all had a cold and felt a bit sick for a week. Even little Merijn. It was his first cold. Poor thing. But he slept like an ox during the nights (he does that anyway). And the colds came back at the end of the month. Boo.

⌘ I picked up Amigo’s urn which was a bit bigger than I imagined it would be when I ordered it from the animal crematorium through the phone after seeing it on a picture. But it is very pretty and lovely to set in the house and Amigo deserves a special spot in our house even after death. I might give it another place than where it is now though.

⌘ Keeping up with the theme of ordering things that I thought were going to be smaller was definitely my new phone. I had an old Blackberry. It was already an old version when I bought it and now 5 years later there were barely any updates for it. It shut down and wouldn’t start for 2 days. So I got another one. A Samsung Galaxy J5. I have so little understanding of phones to be honest. I really thought it was going to be smaller. Oh well.

⌘ Merijn turned 12 weeks/3 months this month and he and I had a difficult month. Lets keep it at that. He is growing though and I hope things will be better for the both of us in December. It has gotten better near the end of the month anyway, and he sleeps almost an hour long in the mornings some days now. Whoohoo.

⌘ The last weekend of the month we went to my parents for a few days. Which was what my husband really needed. He was able to get 6 days off and 4 of those we spend at my parents in zeeland (Dutch province where I grew up) which is a good 3 hours drive away. It was a bit of an undertaking with everything we had to take with us for Merijn but we managed.

⌘ I am also an idiot who ordered books through my mothers account but forgot to change the address to our house. And like mentioned above, they don’t live near us. So had to pay extra for shipping. Hear me weep.

What Did I Watch?

⌘ Orphan Black / Season 2 / Finished
We got around to finishing season 2 and my husband was so dissapointed we didn’t have season 3 to watch straight away.

⌘ Penny Dreadfull / Season 1 / up to episode 6 or so
I don’t think we are really sold on it. I love the idea but I don’t think the execution is done very well. It just goes down too many different lines and backgrounds too early on for me. But we’ll probably still finish the season.

⌘ Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire / movie
You all KNOW I love Scooby so I always watch the movies when they are shown on Cartoon Network. I hadn’t actually seen this one yet. It was good though the singing wasn’t needed for me.

⌘ Ice Age 5 / movie
We finally got this one on dvd. I’ve mentioned before that I have a love for these movies. I kind of felt this one lacked the interaction between the main trio from the first movie. I get that a lot of characters have been added since then but I watch the movies for their interactions and relationships. They should still be there, more so then they were shown in this movie in any case.

⌘ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them / movie
I loved it. ❤

⌘ Captain America: Civil War / movie
We both weren’t very taken with this one. It just wasn’t feeling the whole Iron Man and Captain America interactions compared to the other movies. And I missed some of the humor.And why is this a Captain America movie anyway? It feels more like an Avenger one.

Best of My Bookstagram

I got a picture over a 100 likes this month. For the first time. Yeay for me. I also finally got over 700 followers.

Now that we are nearing Winter, the days are getting darker and I am having more trouble finding time to take pictures with natural lighting. Does anyone else struggle with this and how do you deal with it?

⌘ Amanda Lovelace (author of The Princess Saves Herself in this One) is hosting a readathon in December #readthemargin to read marginalized authors. See the post on her instagram

What Is Up Next Month?

⌘ Obviously there is Christmas. But before Christmas there is Sinterklaas in the Netherlands. It is a Dutch children’s holiday. With my husbands family we celebrate it by exchanging small anonymous gifts with rhymes. For a small budget we always end up with a lot.

⌘ And yes Christmas. Depending on my husbands work we’ll probably end up going to my parents for two days or so.

⌘ As for reading I mostly just want to read the next two The Others book I still need to read. They are reasonably lengthy so that will probably take up most of the month. I would also like to get to The Diabolic and Fantastic Beasts screenplay. Screenplay you say? Why yes, because I did love the movie and that cover is hard to pass up. Shhhh.

Linking Up

The Sunday post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. This is a bit of a recap post of the week (or month) where you can link to the posts you made this week, share news and wrap up your reading.

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19 thoughts on “Dancing Out of November 2016”

Aaww.. Merijn looks so cute!
Congrats on reaching your reading challenge! I don’t think I’m going to get mine (150 reads) but I’m still happy with how far I did get. And I still have a view weeks! 🙂
I hope you have a nice Sinterklaas and happy reading!

I loved Fantastic Beasts and cannot wait for the next release. Orphan Black and Penny Dreadful are shows we watch. Merijn is adorable, and so much bigger than the Prince. Before you know it he will fill out. Congrats on meeting your goal! Stay warm and have a wonderful week!

Love that picture with the mist! Very nice. Odd and the Frost Giants has me curious because I love Norse myth. That’s funny, we have a town called Zeeland here too- the area to the west is heavily Dutch immigrant and there’s a Holland and a Zeeland next to each other. 🙂

I love Orphan Black and I hear you on Civil War. I was all excited for it and liked it, but my motivation to rewatch it is pretty low so it must not have had too much of an impact? lol

I might join you in inventorying and making a list of owned unread books, both on my shelves and in my Kindle library, for next year. It is a scary thought, but I really want to get a handle on things in 2O17. It is funny you ended up with the same number. At least you didn’t add any. Ha ha! 📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

The phases babies go through are usually short lived, so hang in there. He is slowly preparing you for the Terrible Twos, which for Baz started at 1 1/2 and lasted until he was nearly four! Heh heh. 😝

Yay for your Instagram success! Kindle still doesn’t have a proper app for its tablets where I can follow, like and comment, the one they have only works on the Fire phone, but I am always hopeful. 📷

I didn’t realize there was an Ice Age 5! I have only seen the first three. Maybe I will watch 4 & 5 with the two girls I babysit next time they are both here at the same time.

I always enjoy the pictures of Merijn so much. Hugs for both of you. 💜

Welcome to A Dance with Books

I’m Annemieke. A Dutch book blogger who blogs in English. But I’m also a wife and mom. I prefer to read fantasy (adult and young adult) books but sometimes I deviate from that genre a little. Feel free to leave me a comment or contact me through other social media accounts. I always welcome a chat.

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